Jim Rosica
• Lawmakers will try to live on $17 a day: At least 18 Florida lawmakers plan to live on a minimum wage this week to draw attention to efforts to increase the state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour.
Starting Monday, the lawmakers will live for five days on $17 per day.
That figure represents what a minimum-wage worker has after the costs of taxes, childcare and housing are deducted from an $8.05-an-hour paycheck.
The lawmakers – mostly Democrats – will also go grocery shopping with a minimum-wage worker at the start of the week.
State Sen. Dwight Bullard and state Rep. Victor Torres are pushing legislation to increase Florida’s current minimum wage from $8.05 to $15 an hour.
Reprinted with permission of The Associated Press.
• McBurney applies for judgeship: The chairman of the House’s Judiciary Committee has applied for a vacant judgeship in the judicial circuit for Clay, Duval and Nassau counties.
State Rep. Charles McBurney, a Jacksonville Republican, is one of 32 people who applied for the position, according to a news release from The Florida Bar. Judges Mallory Cooper and Lawrence Haddock face mandatory retirement.
As The Florida Times-Union noted, McBurney “would follow the example of his predecessor, Chief Judge Mark Mahon, if he gets appointed to replace Cooper or Haddock. Mahon was the state representative for District 16 when former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist appointed him to the bench in 2007, and McBurney replaced Mahon in the Legislature after winning a special election.”
The circuit’s Judicial Nominating Commission will next meet on Oct. 6 at the offices of Tanner Bishop in Jacksonville to select applicants to interview, the news release said.
Interviews are scheduled for Oct. 19 in Mahon’s chambers in the Duval County Courthouse. A schedule for those interviews will be published on Oct. 7, the Bar said.
• Governor and Cabinet to discuss Dozier School: Gov. Rick Scott and the Florida Cabinet on Tuesday will discuss how to proceed on a now-closed boys’ reform school in the Panhandle where researchers have been searching for unmarked graves.
The state had granted permission to a team of University of South Florida researchers led by forensic anthropologist Erin Kimmerle to continue work at the Dozier School for Boys in Marianna until the end of January, according to a Cabinet meeting agenda item.
As The Tampa Tribune explained, the USF team has been unearthing bodies there since 2012.
“The reform school was shuttered in 2011 amid decades of claims from former inmates that boys endured abuse, severe beatings, sexual assaults, and killings,” its report said.
Questions include what to do with some remains and artifacts that were found on the grounds.
